Expenses | Wishes And Pixie Dust

July 30, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 5 Comments

The Movers Came And Left Us Boxes

Which was the whole idea, of course! We weren’t sure if the huge tractor-trailer was going to make it into the complex, but there is a back entrance and it worked out just fine. They unloaded in less time than it took to load the truck, so it was quite nice for it to be done in under three hours. Of course now we are surrounded by boxes; but we are able to find what we need by referring to our list. What a time saver that has been! The movers commented on how well packed the boxes were, and were a little surprised at how little furniture we brought with us.

Looking back I believe we’re both regretting the decision to not move our bed. We chose to do this because the mattress was not comfortable anymore, and it made financial sense to buy new mattresses when we arrived. The airbed was a practical solution. However, the airbed did not hold up its end of the bargain, and it blew a hole Wednesday night; repeated efforts to fix it with duct tape only made the hole bigger. So we’ve been sleeping on the floor for right now, as our expected expenses were much larger than we anticipated (details in blog post coming), and we are unable to return the airbed as it was purchased in a store that exists only in the Midwest. We were able to unearth Ben and Catie’s body pillows, in the hope that laying on them will prove to be a little more comfier than the floor. We both feel, however, that the temporary discomfort of sleeping on the floor is just a minor blip. We love living in Florida; we have found most people to be very friendly and nice and willing to help out.

So today we’ve been slowly unpacking boxes and trying to make our apartment our home. Catie has done an awesome job with her room, though we’ve discovered that Brighthouse will need to come back, because the cable outlet in her room is not functional. The kitchen, although small, has some very roomy cabinets, so we’re confident that everything will fit. We’re thankful there are recyclable dumpsters in the back, which allows us to easily dispose of our cardboard boxes and packing paper. It seems a little “un-green” to not Freecycle them, but with the gated entrance it’s not a viable option.

We also drove around the city of Clermont to sightsee and locate the public library and the middle school. It was too late in the afternoon to go to the library, but we will do that during the week to check it out. We took what we thought were pictures of the area, but they ended up being videos instead, so we will go around again later and take pictures and post to the blog.

We discovered our local Winn-Dixie grocery store, and we were quite impressed by it. Winn-Dixie does have a saver card (the only one of the three main grocery stores to have one), and we probably will frequent this store quite a lot. We were originally put off by Winn-Dixie because we had visited one in the Kissimmee area two years ago while on vacation and were not impressed. The store in Clermont, however, is fairly nice and the prices are not unreasonable.

After dinner we took time to swim in the pool, which is so nice to be able to do that. Ben is turning into a regular little fish, and I”m sure it will not be long before Catie is as well. Tomorrow morning we will visit a church that is one of our top choices, and are really looking forward to getting settled into a church close to home.

July 28, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 2 Comments

Food Shopping

In this blog post we’d like to take a look at two different supermarkets in the Clermont area, which one we’ll probably be using most often, and why. We’re also going to compare and contrast the prices here versus what we were paying in Wisconsin. To begin with, you must know that up to now we are loyal food shoppers. We usually only frequent one grocery store on a regular basis. We will on occasion pick a few items up from Wal-Mart, but they typically are items that are the Wal-Mart brand and not available anywhere else.

Prior to moving to Clermont, we researched grocery stores in the area and knew there were two stores we wanted to check out: Publix and Sweet Bay Supermarkets. We’ll start with Publix.

Publix has five different locations in the Clermont area:

Citrus Tower Village (250 Citrus Tower Blvd)
Publix at Kings Ridge (4351 S Highway 27)
East Towne Center (13900 County Road 455)
Golden Eagle Village (2430 US Highway 27)
Publix at Summer Bay (17445 US Highway 192 Ste 11)

Publix’s ads run from Thursday to Wednesday, and offer some pretty decent savings. For example, this week Tombstone Pizza is 2.99 each, red seedless grapes $1.69/lb, sweet cherries $1.99/lb, and several buy one get one free deals. We felt Publix was very similar to our Festival Foods: there is no loyalty customer card, the employees are super friendly, and it seems to place the customer as its main priority. The non-sale prices, however, are quite high. The average price on cold cereal is $4.99/box ($3.39 in Wis), and a small can of mushrooms was $1.75 ($.65 in Wis). A couple of observations: the price of jam seems to be cheaper, eggs are about the same, the store brand of hot dog buns are the freshest we’ve ever purchased, and the oranges were the best we’ve ever had. Overall, Publix is a great place to shop to get the weekly deals, but too expensive to make it the only store to shop at.

Sweet Bay Supermarket has two locations in Clermont: 1718 E Hwy 50 and 1714 US Hwy 27. The sale prices do not seem as eye-grabbing as Publix’s, but the prices overall are lower and fairly comparable to Wisconsin. For example, a 6-pk of Coke products for $2.99, Kraft Mac & Cheese $.79 and Taco Bell dinner kit for $2.59. This supermarket will mostly likely end up being our store of choice for most groceries that we need to purchase on a weekly basis.

There are some items that are higher irregardless of where we shop. Milk is one example. In Wisconsin the price of a gallon of 2% milk was $2.95. In Clermont it averages about $3.49 per gallon. We bought a half gallon of Sweet Bay milk and a half gallon of Publix milk to judge taste, as being from Wisconsin, a dairy state; we are kind of picky on the taste of milk. My kids are happy to report that Sweet Bay milk has passed their taste test; no verdict yet on the Publix milk. One thing we will need to get used to is the small dairy section in the stores. 🙂 It’s about a fourth of the size of what we are used to.

Thanks for following along! We have quite a few blog posts planned, so keep checking in and hopefully we’ll get them out to you soon!

Have a magical day!

July 17, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 3 Comments

Planning For The Last Week

We went to Fleet Farm today to pick up a couple of items to get the house ready for the next set of renters, and as we pulled in to the parking lot, we saw this vehicle. We immediately thought of Fillmore, from Cars:

“I’m tellin’ you, man, every third blink is slower”

We have yet to see Cars 2 in the theatre; we may take it in this week once everything slows down a little… but perhaps we’re misguided thinking things will slow down! 🙂 We’re finished packing in the kitchen except for a few last minute items. An unexpected expense we hadn’t considered is the meals out we’ll be eating this week; plus the purchase of the disposable plates and bowls, which granted, isn’t a huge expense but it’s still one, nonetheless. Wednesday we plan to eat at Tucker’s, a family and local favorite:

They have the absolute best popcorn, second only to Walt Disney World, of course.

Thursday we plan to eat at Pizza Ranch, one last time with Nick; he called it a last meal, but that just sounds so final, as we know we’ll be back to visit:

In our opinion they have the absolute best fried chicken that you can find. The pizza is good, too, but definitely go for the chicken.

Friday, of course, is our departure date, and we plan to have our dinner in the hotel room. For road trips we always pack ham sandwiches from Festival Foods, and other assorted goodies for a picnic lunch; so we plan to do this again. It’s tradition, and you don’t mess with tradition. LOL

Right now our plan is to leave here by 3:15pm on Friday. We anticipate that the movers will be done by noon, and our landlord comes at 3:00 to check us out. We hope to be in Pleasant Prairie by 6:00, which will allow us to eat and perhaps check out the outlet mall as well. We will have internet access all the way down, thanks to the hotspot activation on the cell phone, so we will be able to post blogs nightly and keep you updated. We will also be posting updates using Twitter and Facebook along the way.

Enjoy your Sunday ♥

July 12, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 4 Comments

To Dream Is To Believe

A common theme in our blog posts have referred to how brutal Wisconsin winters can be; we won’t revisit that topic, but reference it in the fact many Wisconsinites dream of moving to Florida, especially in the months November through March. To us Florida is an exotic location, with sunny skies and palm trees, while we sit with piles of snow and sub-zero temperatures. As we finalize our move, a recurrent comment we hear from people is: “I’m jealous”, mainly made in reference to not having to survive another winter.

It’s easy enough to observe us and feel like we have it made; to feel jealousy over the fact our winters in Florida will be spring weather in Wisconsin, and that we’ll never have to shovel again. The truth is, we consciously made the decision to make this our reality, and we have worked hard to make it happen. It has not been an easy road for any of us, but we feel the effort is well worth any sacrifices we have to make in the meantime.

One thousand, two hundred and eighty seven days ago we first dreamed the dream, of relocating to Florida close to Walt Disney World. We write out that number in words because it really seems surreal right now that we are only ten days away from realizing our dream. There were many moments of doubt that we experienced. The first twelve to twenty months it was merely a dream that we talked about; something that would occur in the future but we had no idea when, and we did nothing towards making it a reality. It seemed so far away in the future that it seemed pointless to expend energy at that point in time. The basement boxes and just the accumulation of possessions that we owned really overwhelmed us as where to start, so we did nothing. After our Disney trip in 2009, we were more enthusiastic than ever about moving to Florida and this is when we let the kids in on our dream, that someday we would move to Florida.

The dream first became real to us last summer, in June 2010, when we first set a date of September 2012 and started the blog. Even though we now had a date, it still seemed like it would never happen; and we didn’t really believe it would happen. How much difference a year makes! Since that time we backed the date to September 2013, and then in January of this year, we decided to take the plunge and move this summer. “Do you really think we can do it this summer?” is the question that propelled us forward.

We can’t say how many times we doubted ourselves, but it was a lot. Over the past six months since we made the final decision, we haven’t doubted our choice, but there have been moments of fear: fear of the unknown, fear that what we are doing is not in the best interests of our children, and fear that we will fail.

We are now ten days away from leaving Wisconsin. We can honestly say that this is the best decision we could have made for our family; our kids are uber-excited about moving to Florida, and while we won’t be traveling with as much money as we’d like (thanks to car repairs); we are very thankful we were able to take care of the repairs now and not have them happen along the way. We won’t be able to purchase as much furniture right away as we had previously planned, but we’ll make it work. An empty, unfurnished apartment in Florida is way better than our current home in Wisconsin, and because it is an apartment our expenses will be less than if we rented a house: we won’t need to do lawn care, maintain a pool, or spray for bugs; and we will have access to a business lanai (with wireless internet and printers) and fitness center, should be choose to utilize these amenities.

Thanks for following along~ we appreciate your comments and feedback!

July 6, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 3 Comments

Go The Distance

It seems wild to us to think we only have sixteen days left in Wisconsin. When we made our decision back in January to move , it certainly was an easy one to make, given the blowing snow and bitterly cold temperatures, and of course our love for Disney. In the past six months we have overcome obstacles; we share this bit of information because we want to let you know that it is impossible to plan a move across several states without hitting at least one or two roadblocks along the way. Things will not always go as you plan, you will have bad days and moments of “why did I ever decide to do this?” pop into your head. We’re here to let you know it’s okay, keep moving forward with your dream, and deal with the obstacles as they occur.

One such obstacle is our car. We brought it in to the shop in March for $700 worth of repairs, $900 in June, and yes, we are bringing it in again in July (tomorrow). As we mentioned earlier, the check engine light came on and while that didn’t necessarily alarm us too much, the large puddle of coolant on our garage floor that leaked after we drove around for a couple of hours did. We are hoping it’s nothing serious, and we would appreciate prayers on this issue, because we really don’t want to pour more money into repairs, as this is money that is not buying furniture for us when we move.

One of the things we are most looking forward to once we are in Clermont and inside our apartment, is to just enjoy the moment, knowing there are no boxes to pack, no rooms to clean, no furniture to unload, and nothing to do except realize that we did it. That is the moment that we hold on to now, that helps us to get us through these next two weeks, whatever they may bring.